All The Socks

Awhile back I said something about casting on All The Socks when I was done knitting for the book. And so I have. 

These are the Leyburn pattern. I made a pair in 2011. The pattern is a good one, so I made another pair. This pair is out of some of the yarn I got last month while I was in New Zealand: Knitsch in the Odelay colorway. 

Immediately after blocking these socks, I wound up some of the yarn I got at this year's Stitches West. This is Blue Moon Fiber's Silkie Sock in the Mossley Manly colorway. I blame Alicia on Woolen Diversions. This colorway has shown up from time to time on her blog and I desired it.

The pattern is Vanilla Latte. The pattern is good, but I am a dummy. When I put in the toe, I couldn't figure out why I had 10 more stitches on the bottom than the top. The foot of the sock also seemed a bit loose. Eventually I determined that I chosen to randomly not decrease enough stitches in the gusset. Want to guess how many stitches I was off by.

If 10 stitches is your guess, you are right. The foot of this sock has since been ripped out and reknit. I'm on the second sock now. This is the number one reason I don't do socks 2-at-a-time. I don't need to mess up a two socks at the same time.

Is anyone else knitting socks at the moment? Have you had any dumb sock moments?

Priorities

Work on the book goes ever on. I'm currently working on the diagrams of various techniques. Here's a draft of the backwards loop cast on. This was probably the easiest one to draw. Others have taken days. I really would like to be done with these in the next week or so. I think I have around 12 more drawings to go, so we shall see.

But if I'm going to be truly honest as to why I have been MIA from the blog, I might have gotten hooked on a particular show. My buddy AJ loaned me the first season of Game of Thrones, which meant three things:
1. I had to buy the second season.
2. I had to go out and get the first book... and then the second.... and soon the third.
3. Doing anything that wasn't related directly to The Book or Game of Thrones was immediately abandoned.

For those who are also hooked, who are your favorite characters? My favorites thus far are Jon Snow, the Hound, Arya, and Jaqen. I've been fortunate that most of my favorite characters are escaping death so far, but you never know with this series.

Book Progress

After finishing up the last two photo shoots, I spent the last week formatting my book. It is largely done and patterns are now with the test knitters. Here's a wee sneak peek for you guys.

There is a light at the end of this tunnel. Hopefully I'll have a printed book in my hand by the end of summer.

Cranking Out The Knits

It's been a crazy for the last week and a bit. Three days after getting back from New Zealand, I made a quick trip North to do the last two photoshoots. There are no behind the scenes pictures of it because we did the shoots back to back and everyone was pretty focused on getting them done. But I can say that my last two models were perfect. After coming back, I rested for a day or two before beginning to layout the book. And somewhere in there I managed to finish my Grace Cardigan.

Or, I'm going to call it done. After getting the buttons in, I had the misfortune of learning that the buttons will not stay in the button holes. I've been wearing it regardless and I probably wouldn't button it up anyways. Maybe I'll fix it one day. At least the sleeves fit now.

I had knit one of these socks to the heel while in New Zealand. I went absolutely nuts when I got back and cranked the remaining sock and a half out.

 

I modified these Sleepy Hollow socks to not have the weird bar of stockinette down the back center. This pair has leaves going around the entire leg. Other than my modifications to cut down on the stitch number, this pattern was perfect. It was easy to follow and reasonably relaxing for being socks that have patterning every round. The heel and gusset are knit at the same time, which was a first for me. I think I like that method better than picking up heel flap stitches. 

I briefly worked on another WIP I have, but couldn't wait any longer to cast on with some of the yarn I procured in New Zealand. This is Knitsch in the colorway Odelay. I'm making a second pair of Leyburns. The Leyburn pattern was the first sock pattern that gave me a pair of socks that fit. I liked the pattern quite a bit, so I thought I would revisit it. So far, so good.

The rest of this week will be dedicated to book layout. The goal is to have the patterns out to test knitters by Friday. I really hope I can get through it all.